This year, our Women's History Month poster highlights Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955), an American educator and champion of gender and racial equality.
In 1904, Bethune founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls, which later became Bethune-Cookman College. She became the first African American woman to head a federal agency when President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her director of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration in 1936. In 1945, she was the only woman of color at the United Nations’ founding conference.
Bethune was a leader in the black women’s club movement, serving as president of the National Association of Colored Women’s clubs, and founding president of the National Council of Negro Women. She became vice president of the NAACP in 1940, a position she held until her death. In 1973, Bethune was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp in her honor in 1985.
Printable posters can be downloaded or ordered at www.nysut.org/posters. You will need your member ID to place an order; up to 10 copies are available for free to NYSUT members.